2 1GT Thursday August 6 2020 | the times

times

I

t was a shock, I think, for

everyone in their fifties to

hear this week that they

might be asked to shield and

stay home, although as it

turned out, the government

changed its mind, I don’t

know why. It probably had

something to do with keeping

Pret a Manger up and running. It

usually does. Or Pizza Express.

But it was a shock because you

trundle on and you trundle on

and birthdays come and go and

somehow you never really

register: gosh, I’m actually quite

old now. You get on with it.

There are signs. You may catch

your reflection and

recoil with: “I’m my

mother!” Sometimes,

when you’re climbing

the stairs, say, or

running for a bus,

it sounds as if

your buttocks are

clapping you. (My

buttocks are very

good at clapping me

and, frankly, I don’t

mind getting

some positive

encouragement

once in a while.)

You steer clear

of Topshop and

similar because you fear others

may assume you’re lost and need

redirecting to the Ecco shop or

Wallis. (I imagine the security

guards on their walkie-talkies:

“Woman in her fifties in knitwear!

Now approaching lingerie!

Redirect to Wallis! Redirect to

Ecco! Poor thing probably doesn’t

know the time of day!”)

But still, it doesn’t properly

register. I am as I ever was, is the

overriding feeling. I’m not old.

Not really. So when you hear that

anyone over 50 might have to

shield, it comes as a punch to the

solar plexus, which is still under

there, somewhere, maybe. Where

have all the years gone? How did

this happen? What about all the

stuff I’ve never done, like

becoming a goth? Or being “sexy”.

Is it too late now? OK, if it’s too

late to become “sexy” and then a

goth, could I kill two birds and

become a sexy goth? Could

I? (Please say. In particular, I

would like to hear from anybody

who has tried later-life sexy

gothness because I would be

most interested in how that

worked out.)

However, you do have to look

on the bright side, ultimately. And

there are reasons to be cheerful,

even if the government is telling

us we’re a bit finished. First,

though, we need to put to bed

what others usually say to make

themselves feel better about

ageing, such as “I know who

I am”, as if we suddenly stop

being works-in-progress, or “I

no longer compare myself with

others”, which is mad because

how would you know if you’re

successful otherwise?

But you do accumulate wisdom

that you can now pass on. That’s

true. I live with twentysomethings

and I’m always passing it on,

which is fortunate for them

because they’re completely

mistaken about almost

everything. So I’m constantly

going around saying, “No one

needs to wash clothes at a

temperature higher than 40

degrees,” or, “Crisps aren’t

breakfast,” or, “Don’t stick your

fingers in food like a feral animal.

I can see your prints in the

butter.” And so on.

I have to say, they’re not

especially grateful, so it can be

lonely when you’re right about

everything. But no one said that

being the only one around here

who knows how the world works

would be easy. Swings and

roundabouts and all that.

Other things to cheer up

fiftysomethings? Um. You can

attend aqua aerobics and feel

youthful because

you’re among the

youngest there.

And you can

search for a word

at breakfast and

not get it until

midnight, which

can be exciting.

(Most recently I

got “parquet” at

midnight and was

thrilled because I

would no longer

have to say: “That

wooden flooring,

comes in blocks,

laid at angles.. .”).

Oh, and here’s a good one.

You know those full-page

advertisements you see for

retirement villages? That show a

woman with grey, but abundant

and beautifully styled hair, staring

deep into the eyes of a fella also

with grey hair, but a luxurious

head of it, and they both have

super teeth and look as though

they’ve just had sex? And may

only be 42? Well, isn’t that

cheering? Knowing that’s you, in

just a few more years, which

means you’re not far off having

great hair and great teeth and

loads of sex while maybe being

only 42? And you know what? I

can’t wait. Bring it on.

Quincy

would love

my feet

all, not even when I tell

them what it will cost

in electricity if they

don’t turn the lights off

before they come up at

night. In fact, how do

they repay me? They

repay me by saying I

have “morgue feet”.

Morgue feet!

And I can’t deny it.

After I’ve been sitting

for a while they go all

cold and bluish-purple

like the feet you see

sticking out from under

blankets on mortuary

tables in TV thrillers,

and if it were Quincy,

ME, then Quincy would

be saying, “Murder,”

while the DA would be

saying, “Suicide,” and

then they would go to

Chinatown to thrash it

out over a bite. While

sitting adjacent on a

red velvet banquette.

(If you hate being an

over-50 ask yourself:

would I have had

Quincy, ME otherwise?)

I don’t know why my

feet get like this. Do

you? Perhaps if you’re

a later-life sexy goth

with “morgue feet”

and you understand

why they go that

blotchy purple-blue

you could write in?

Since that would be

three birds? All I

know is that they

return to a more

normal, less morgue-y

pinkish-white as soon

as I get moving again

across our floor, which,

downstairs, is that

wood that comes in

blocks and is set at

angles... Damn, damn,

damn. Gone again.

So, day after day I pass

on all this accumulated

wisdom to the nieces

that live with me —

“That rubbish isn’t

going to take itself out

to the bin” — and they

really aren’t grateful.

Sometimes I even think

they’re not listening at

Deborah Ross

Reasons to be cheerful

in my fifties? I feel

young in aqua aerobics

Who’s afraid of

Teenagers can’t get enough of the

Chinese app — now it’s the subject of

controversy in the US and UK. What’s

the big deal? By Chris Stokel-Walker

B

ad news: if you

somehow managed

to escape being roped

into a choreographed

family dance by your

grandchildren when

they visited for

Christmas and have

spent lockdown studiously ignoring

TikTok, your time is up. The world’s

most powerful man, Donald Trump,

has made it the focus of the 2020 US

presidential election.

Confronted by a Chinese app

dominating the world, and worried

about potential national security

issues that could stem from that,

Trump and his administration

officials, including Mike Pompeo,

the US secretary of state, have

threatened to ban it. Trump later

cooled his demands, saying that

he would accept a sale to the US

technology company Microsoft.

However, the step back from the brink

came with a caveat: the deal must be

done by September 15, Trump says,

“at which point it’s going to be out

of business in the United States”.

Trump has taken against TikTok,

so of course there is wall-to-wall

coverage of the app wherever you

look. What’s the big fuss about it?

Is a Chinese spy watching you fail at

dancing to the latest pop song? And

how does it work, anyway?

1 What is it?

It’s the latest tech sensation, with

800 million people worldwide using

the app every month — and growing

fast. Users post videos between 15 and

60 seconds long that can be seen by

anyone in the world. It is huge in the

UK, with 27 per cent of 18 to 24-year-

olds using the app, according to

YouGov; this figure has risen from

7 per cent at the start of the pandemic.

“Creators make videos of all sorts,

including dancing, singing, art, sport

and comedy, and it’s been branded

the place for self-expression,” says

Vicky Banham, 22, a TikTok manager

at the digital media company Jungle

Creations and a tiktoker herself, with

1.3 million followers.

2 Why is it controversial?

For the best part of three decades

social media apps we have used —

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and

Snapchat — have been based in a

small pocket of land on the west coast

of America: Silicon Valley. TikTok is

not. Its parent company, Byte Dance,

is based in Beijing.

Its location has proven to be a

political hot potato, sweeping up

TikTok in a broader spat between

the West and China over its tech

advancements, including the

banning of Huawei from US

and UK 5G networks.

Trump has attempted to make the

threat of China an election issue,

spending tens of thousands of dollars

on Facebook and Instagram adverts

reaching millions of voters. Their

message is clear: “TikTok is spying

on you.” Republican politicians, as well

as Conservative MPs including Iain

Duncan Smith, have called it a threat

to national security, fearing that the

data we give it is being fed directly to

the Chinese Communist Party. The

former Tory leader told The Times:

“Byte Dance is every bit as unreliable

as Huawei.”

3 Is it a threat?

TikTok denies that any data goes to

China, and cybersecurity researchers

who have analysed the app’s code

agree. “The servers for US users are

already outside China, in Singapore

and the US, so one has to assume that

any security concern relates to the

ultimate ownership of TikTok,” says

Alan Woodward, a professor of

cybersecurity at the University of

Surrey. He added that the fact that

TikTok might be subject to the

National Intelligence Law, introduced

in 2016, raised questions. It allows the

Chinese state to access data held by

any Chinese-based company on a

whim. However, TikTok says that it

has never received any requests from

the Chinese state, and would not

accede to them if it did; besides which,

non-Chinese users’ data is not held in

China, so it wouldn’t be accessible.

Other researchers, including

Robert Baptiste, a French

cybersecurity expert, have analysed

the app’s code and found that it acts

no differently from several other apps

we use daily to book flights, post

photos, find directions and watch

videos. Critics of TikTok point to a

post on Reddit, a discussion forum,

whose creator could not provide the

documentary evidence to support

his claims, and a lawsuit filed by a

Californian student in December that

has not yet been litigated.

4 What information

do we give it?

The same we give to Facebook,

Instagram, Twitter and others. It

monitors everything you type in the

app, details of your phone, including

what model it is, what time zone

you’re in and what mobile provider

you use, as well as your phone’s

contacts (provided that you give it

permission). It also uses the data it

has about how you interact with

videos on the app to show you more

of what you like.

All those things sound worrying, but

they are exactly the same bits of data

we disclose about ourselves when we

use the big western social networks

and apps. We have begun to recognise

that in general this is a problem, but

we appear to have misdiagnosed the

cause: it’s not the fault of TikTok, but

a broader issue with the technology

industry. “Generation Overshare are

quite happy to give away their data in

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